


Mango

by carrotomnomnom



Category: SHINee
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-28
Updated: 2017-03-28
Packaged: 2018-10-12 01:09:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10478673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carrotomnomnom/pseuds/carrotomnomnom
Summary: Taemin’s sinus hurts and he gets his doctor’s name wrong in the midst of all the pain.





	

“It feels like someone punched my face” Taemin said, his voice sounding muffled as he massaged the area near his nose. “It hurts,” he said. It was at 3AM in the morning when Taemin woke up from his sleep, a numbing and throbbing pain felt near the bridge of his nose. He couldn’t go back to sleep without muttering “Fuck, it hurts,” every 5 minutes cause of how much pain he was in. Being the strong boy he was (according to him), he decided to deal with it and go about his normal day with his face feeling as if he got himself into a fist fight. 

 

It was 7:35PM now and Taemin still felt as miserable as he was at 3AM. Perhaps slightly less since it was almost dinner time.

 

“Have you tried seeing a doctor yet?” Jinki questioned, not looking up from the pan in front of him, the spatula in his hands making light work with the fillets. He stood a little bit further away from the stove though, his hand stretched out as the oil splattered everywhere when he put in another batter covered fillet in. He didn’t want their food to burn. Tonight was chicken night after all.

 

“Going to the doctor would be a sign of weakness! Weakness!!!” the boy reasoned, flailing his hands around for effect. Not before he hit himself in the face, hissing from his stroke of carelessness. 

 

Jinki sighed, bringing over the now cooked pieces of meat over to the coffee table opposite their shared couch.

 

“I don’t understand your logic. How is going to the doctor’s clinic a sign of weakness?” he asked, grabbing a piece before stuffing it into his mouth. 

 

‘Man, am I a good cook,’ he thought. 

 

“It just is!” the boy reasoned again, sitting up, his mouth now stuffed with fried batter and battered chicken as he gave Jinki an incredulous look. 

 

Jinki shook his head. At times like this he wondered why was he even rooming with him in the first place.

 

“Don’t come complaining to me then when it gets worse later,” he said, taking another bite of his masterpiece.

 

~!~

 

It got worse. Now it didn’t feel like someone punched his face, it felt like someone took a bat and smashed it in his face with all the force they had in their body. After Jinki’s reassurance that going to the doctor wasn’t as a ‘sign of weakness’, Taemin found himself in the waiting room at a clinic that took him half an hour to get to. 

 

Jinki recommended it, saying that someone he knew worked there and that the person was really nice. Taemin wasn’t sure whether to trust his words. Not when the last time Jinki said someone was ‘nice’, he ended up with sore muscles and an aching back after he recommended a ‘nice’ gym trainer. He was pretty sure the guy worked there to inflict pain on less physically inclined people. 

 

The chairs in the clinic itself looked like they were bought from a secondhand store. The cushioning was soft and he could feel the frame of the chair under his butt. It was a Wednesday morning though and he found it surprising that the waiting room was filled with people, women namely. Most of them were clad in what seemed like their best outfits. A few of them even touching up their makeup. 

 

He didn’t think much of it though as his face was pounding and aching and was really numb and he wasn’t sure whether he could take it anymore. With earbuds on with classical music playing (particularly Vivaldi’s Four Seasons Summer Violin Concierto), his warm cup of tea put him at ease. 

 

He titled his head down, snuggling himself in his oversized sweater as he drowned himself in the music that helped with the pain.

 

“Mr Lee Taemin?” a high-pitched voice called. 

 

Taemin groaned. 

 

‘Just when things were starting to get a little bit comfortable,’ he thought to himself. 

 

With that, he stood up from his seat and headed into the room, throwing his now empty paper cup into a nearby bin. He expected someone in their older years (as were the doctors that he met before) to be in the room but instead he was surprised to see someone younger, probably the same age as Jinki. The man was dressed neatly with a coat hanging over his rather large frame, his hands holding onto a clipboard as he beamed a smile at his new patient. Taemin couldn’t help but smile a bit as well. He was tall. _Very tall_. What fascinated him the most though was the man’s eyes. Deep, chocolate brown irises staring back at him. Now he knew why there were so many women out there and why they were so nicely dressed. He suddenly felt very _underdressed_.

 

Plus the room smelled of kiwis. You can’t go wrong with a room that smells like kiwis. 

 

“Hello, I’m Dr Choi Minho. Nice to meet you,” the man said in a voice that came out deeper than Taemin expected it to. Poor Taemin was too distracted by the symphony of music that begun in his head. Accompanied by the pain in his face, he couldn’t really hear his doctor right. 

 

‘What? Mingo? Mango? What kind of name is Mango? I guess I shouldn’t judge since mangoes are really nice,’ Taemin thought amidst his pain clouded mind. 

 

“Likewise,” he said, smiling. But trying not to smile too much cause that would make him look like a creep.

 

“So, tell me what’s wrong?” Dr Choi asked, offering Taemin a seat.

 

“Well, it hurts here,” he explained, pointing to the sides of his nose bridge, the upper part of his cheek and his forehead. “It feels like someone punched me in the face. I’m not sure how accurate that is though cause I’ve never been punched in the face. I would think this is how it would feel,”.

 

Minho chuckled. “Let’s just see first, alright? I haven’t been punched in the face either but I don’t think it would be very pleasant,”. His hands moved towards Taemin’s face, lightly pressing down on the parts that hurt. His finger’s lingering on Taemin’s jaw a tad bit too long. Taemin thought his fingers felt really soft. Minho hummed softly before taking his pen and jotting down a few things. 

 

“You most probably have a slight sinus infection,” the doctor concluded. “Have you had a cold recently?”

 

“I think so. I remember my roommate complaining over the lack of tissue paper in the apartment,” Taemin said with a dazed voice, looking anywhere but at Minho’s face. 

 

Minho hummed again.

 

“I think we’re done. I’m gonna prescribe you a few things okay? Just take those and you should be fine in a few days,” he said with another beaming smile.

 

Taemin just nodded. For a moment there, he thought he was blinded by his smile.

 

With a quiet thank you, Taemin exited the room, paid for his medication and drove back home. The entire time thinking about the handsome doctor and how his room smelled like kiwis.

 

It was slightly over a week later when Taemin was once again in the waiting room at the clinic that was a half-hour drive from his apartment (Jinki drove him there this time). Contrary to popular belief (aka Jinki), he wasn’t there to visit the handsome doctor with the soft fingers and the room that smelled like kiwis. 

 

Just the day before he was cleaning out his closet. He took out all the junk he had and laid it out on his bedroom floor. Boxes, clothes and assorted items that he didn’t even know he had were sprawled across every inch of available surface. 

 

He was a dancer. He was supposed to have excellent footwork and amazing balance. He was the anomaly though and he tripped. Somewhere on the floor, he didn’t notice a small box that was the same colour as the wooden flooring. One wrong step was all it took for him to end up with a sprained ankle and bruised ego. 

 

All Jinki could do was shake his head, munching on Taemin’s cookie stash that he had accidentally revealed whilst cleaning up his closet. That seemed like the most appropriate reaction considering Taemin injured himself in the silliest way possible. 

 

Back to the clinic, Taemin was once again in the same seat where the cushion was too soft and the frame poked at his butt like needles.. This time he was listening to Wagner’s Entry Of The Guests. This piece accurately represented how Choi Mango (his parents must really liked mangoes, Taemin thought) came into his life, from the brass instruments at the beginning to the singing choir towards the end. 

 

“Mr Lee Taemin?” the same high-pitched voice called. And with that, Taemin entered the kiwi smelling room once more.

 

His doctor looked up at him in surprise, probably not expecting to see him so soon. “Here again Mr Lee?” he asked, a hint of amusement in his voice as he flipped through the same clipboard that he had in his hands a week ago.

 

Taemin smiled sheepishly. “Sprained my ankle. Tripped over some stuff while cleaning the house yesterday,”

 

Minho shook his head with a smile. “Let’s see the damage then,” he said before gently raising Taemin’s foot to rest on his knee. He inspected the boy’s ankle, pressing softly at some points here and there, moving his foot up and down slowly, occasionally asking whether it hurt or not. All to which Taemin didn’t (couldn’t) reply to cause he was too busy trying not to laugh. His feet were very ticklish. 

 

Minho noticed this and chuckled softly, stopping his poking and prodding before setting the boy’s foot down. 

 

Minho jotted a few things down again and prescribed Taemin to stay off his foot and apply a sort of gel-like ointment once a day. Taemin took it gladly, still embarrassed from his (failed) attempts to not laugh. 

 

“Don’t get injured again. I might have to give your roommate a note to prevent you from doing anything if you get hurt this often,” Minho suggested. 

 

Taemin just smiled. Standing up to leave as he hobbled to the door, he trying very hard not to put any pressure on it. “Yeah, I’ll try. Thanks Dr Mango,” he said. 

 

Minho paused for a moment. His eyes blinking in confusion.

 

Taemin too paused for a moment. His eyes too blinking in confusion. 

 

“What?” the man asked, his face showed a confused expression yet amused? Taemin wasn’t sure. All he knew was that he got his doctor’s name wrong by the looks of it. He started to panic, hobbling in the direction of the doctor (who is apparently NOT named after mangoes) as he flailed his arms around in embarrassment, trying to explain why he thought his name was _mango._

 

”Wait, your name isn’t Mango? I just thought your parents really liked mangoes or something. I mean it’s 2017 and I don’t judge people for having unusual names. Oh God I’m such a terrible person that I can’t even get someone’s name right. But I couldn’t hear what you were saying cause I had Wagner’s damn music in my head that day and all I could hear was brass and the choir I’m so sor-” 

 

Taemin cut his apology mid-way at the sound of someone… Laughing? He expected his doctor to get angry at him for getting his name wrong. But instead he was faced with a man who was bent over in laughter as he wiped the tears away from his eyes. 

 

“Umm…. Are you, okay?” Taemin asked, unsure what to do with a situation like this. 

 

“That’s a first, being called mango that is,” Minho said, his laughter simmering into occasional chuckles. 

 

“You’re not angry?” he asked. 

 

Minho shook his head, walking up to Taemin as he ruffled his hair with affection. “Not really. Not when their patient is really cute and you don’t mind being called a fruit,” he said, beaming another one of his blinding smiles. Taemin swore all he could see was a light shining over Mang- Minho’s head. 

 

It was a few months later when Taemin is seen entering the clinic’s front door, this time with not just one cup of tea but with two, one in each hand, and a small plastic bag hanging on his wrist. The receptionist greeted him with a nod of the head and a ‘Hello’ with the high-pitched voice that he’s gotten used to. He has also found out that her name was Shirley. The front of the clinic had a sign that said “CLOSED FOR LUNCH :)” which explained why the waiting room was empty except for the boy himself.

 

With earbuds on, this time Taemin was listening to Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings 2. Waltz: Moderato. He let the strings in this piece envelop his mind as immersed himself in the music, tilting his head back with his eyes closed. He didn’t hear the door open. He also didn’t hear the soft and careful footsteps that were headed in his direction. He definitely couldn’t hear anything when his boyfriend pulled out his earbuds and cupped his face in his soft hands. 

 

“Sleepy?” Minho asked, chuckling as Taemin tiredly opened his eyes. He took a seat beside his boyfriend on one of the soft couches (cause Taemin found out that the normal chair he sits on isn’t suitable for cuddling), pulling him close as Taemin leaned his head into the crook of Minho’s neck.

 

“A little bit,” Taemin mumbled in a very drowsy sounding voice as he shuffled closer to him. “Been practicing later than usual. We have a recital coming up and I needed to change a few things last minute,” he explained.

 

Giving him a peck on the forehead, Minho wrapped his arms around Taemin like a burrito. “You’ll do great. Don’t worry about it,” 

 

“By the way,” Taemin started. “I brought some mangoes today. Reminded me of you,” he said with a smirk. 

 

Minho couldn’t stop laughing. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> this was supposed to be something ‘short’ but it turned into this monster with over 2k words lmao. i would say I’m pretty satisfied with this though.
> 
> i hope you enjoyed it!!


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